This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
IN its largest venture to-date, Melbourne-based developer and builder Lowe Living has lodged plans for a $160 million mixed-use development in South Melbourne.
The future development site sits on the corner of Clarendon and York Streets and is currently occupied by an existing 2,000sqm two-level office building and a 500sqm car park on Ross Place. The latter of which will be retained.
Having acquired the spot earlier this year, Lowe Living has now submitted plans with the council for a mixed-use precinct comprising 1,000sqm of ground floor retail, two floors of premium office space and luxury residential across six levels.
Woods Bagot has designed the building as a tiered horseshoe to enable natural light through commercial space and the 36 apartments, which will range from 110sqm – 390sqm internally across two-, three- and four-bedroom offerings.
“Fundamentally our core philosophy hasn’t changed. We are astutely focused on the luxury owner occupier and downsizer market and have a very specific buyer in mind. By seeking out larger sites in locations like South Melbourne, we can apply this knowledge on a grander scale to projects that have scope for more height and mixed-use applications,” said Tim Lowe, founder and managing director of Lowe Living.
“This allows us to create larger apartments that are still boutique in terms of volume, just with larger floorplates and more amenity to conceptualise. We always have, and will continue to prioritise luxury, and will be targeting $1.4m – $9.5m price points within this South Melbourne project.”
By retaining the existing car parking bays on the title, the retail and commercial parking can be positioned off-site, while also delivering a minimum of two car parks per apartment via the onsite basement.
“This site in particular, appealed to us because of the demand for luxury commercial in city outskirts like South Melbourne, in particular the distinct lack of super high-end luxury apartment stock in the South Melbourne Market precinct,” added Lowe.
“This really was a rare opportunity to find such a large development site in South Melbourne; there really aren’t many remaining undeveloped sites of this scale, if at all.
The development, which set to target a minimum 7-Star NatHERs rating in operation, is the largest project in Lowe Living’s $450m pipeline of luxury residential and mixed-use sites located in and around Melbourne’s Bayside.
“We will always retain a focus on the Bayside market but we are keen to support this with a portfolio of larger sites. We are actively targeting more acquisitions and ideally want to be developing 1 – 2 larger mixed-use projects per annum,” concluded Lowe.
